and me, without my raincoat

I used to be able to do this. When I write, I want it to be honest. I used to be more optimistic, but that part of me is on hiatus, or maybe its left for good. I'm afraid to write, because I don't know if it can be good and terrible at the same time. And if it's terrible, does it need to be out there? 

The emotional pressure I put upon myself is enormous, and at this stage, I think I may have buried me. The physical pressure has been another ride I didn't expect, nor have I welcomed it. As of late, I can't tell the difference between the two. Four months ago, the dizzy spells started, then ear pain and popping, pressure in my face and head, and finally the head rushes while I tried to fall asleep. Swollen lymph nodes remain, old and new, and every day I wonder what the hell could be wrong with me.

 There have been terrible times. Blood tests, then wait. Cat scans, then wait. A one month round of antibiotics, and now, Prednisone. Holy side effects, Batman. 

And what do I worry about most through all of it? How my work, my loved ones, and my life are suffering for it. Sometimes I'm too dizzy to drive. Other times the computer screen looks like it's swaying back and forth, and a lot of times, I finally just cry.

I'm still toughing it out. Maybe I can find some optimism here if I really try. If I could just see the bright side, maybe all of these symptoms would just magically disappear. And maybe I could ignore the it when my co-worker rolls her eyes because I'm leaving work at 3:00 instead of 4:30 because the Prednisone makes me feel manic and pukey. As if I'm having a grand time not having the energy to cook dinner when I finally get home, or go for a walk, or sometimes just do the laundry. Or when I'm pulling over on Route 2 with a panic attack so severe that all color fades from my lips and my body turns into an earthquake so shaky that I can't even dial the phone.  I conserve my energy for fighting the panic attacks at work, so she can do less. And she does, believe me. Last I knew GFA home banking isn't an insurance Web site. Neither is Facebook, nor is your hotmail account.

That said, compassion only goes so far. My optimism is leaving. In these crappy financial times, people just get crappier. Compassion leaves the moment people realize that they might have to actually back someone up, like actually do something.

I've been apologizing for all of it. Hundreds of times a day, and if you ask me, it's become a problem. It's come down to apologizing for my very existence, and with that I'm done. It will never be enough - could never be enough. Expecting that it would was the very reason I wasn't sorry enough. Sometimes you can only be one thing to someone ever after. I can forgive, but I can only do that for me, and by doing so I can still continue to be someone that does better every day.

The days that I do come home and manage to cook dinner despite it all, well, those are the good days. For all of the weeks that I have been at work all day everyday, and have managed to help my co-worker finish the work she's let pile up while she was busy surfing the internet, those are good days, too. What makes me do that? Compassion. Not the fake kind, either. She's overwhelmed, and I feel her pain.

Life can be unkind; how cliche. Like the semi-colon. I can still stand, even if I have to do it alone in my little muffled world, for now. What a freaking metaphor.

in case of emergency, break glass

I don’t know if I feel liberated, or stupid. I sat through an all day insurance class today, at the end of which I was likely going to pass a test that would secure the third of five passing scores to complete my CISR designation. Which only means I’ve been appointed a Certified Insurance Service Representative, which in the end as far as education is concerned means next to nothing, except on paper. And I thought, I’ve got my class credits, and that’s really all I need to maintain my insurance license for another three years.

 

I had planned also to go to a wake tonight for a fellow alumni of the high school from which I graduated, and at which I only spent two years. But he was a good guy, we have a lot of mutual friends, and he committed suicide. I'm not unfamiliar with this kind of loss, unfortunately. This may seem like a non sequitur, but it's not. Stay with me.

 

So at 3:15 p.m., I thought, “Fuck the CISR designation,” and walked out at the end of the session without taking the stupid test. I think I was right. My current boss could care less about it, and my next boss will hopefully be me. Because I don’t want to end up like all of the middle-aged, feathered hair, office politics savvy, throw your coworkers under the bus to get ahead other CISR designated stick up their but morons also in attendance. That’s not to leave out the 55 plus-ers.  I’m never getting the old lady, easy to maintain, every hair frozen in place to aqua-net perfection, shiny gold watch to match hair-do. Uh uh. Never.

 

I don’t want to sell insurance for the rest of my life. Period. I want a book deal. Because I deserve it. I have things to say. I have experience, and because living is the thing I’m best at. Not surviving. Living. And writing.

 

I’ve been losing an uphill battle out here, at least as far as doing what’s really right for me, as opposed to what’s good for my boss, my friends, my family. All of it. And in the end I’ve been a nervous wreck, which doesn’t look good on me. I need and want to change this, effective 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon.

 

Work – I give it two more years max. I’m going to save money, and either leave here, buy a house of my own, or take a year off and write, write, write. Or all of the above. I’m not made to work at a place like I have been, with people who don’t care about anything important, serving customers who make every mistake they make someone else’s problem, etc. etc. An example: lady calls about her cancelled insurance after failing to pay her monthly bill for three months. I say the company will take a money order and signed “no loss” today to reinstate. Her reply, “I can’t get out of work to pay my insurance....you’re...you’re USELESS!” and promptly hangs up. Which brings me back to suicide. What if I were someone else (someone weaker)? What if I were going through a divorce, and missed my kids, and I were running out of money because gas is $4.07 a gallon? And I think we’re all killing each other to live, and it has to stop. And I can’t tell her this because she’s a sad, compassionless human being. And I think maybe she could be that other person, too.

 

I just wonder why we’re all doing this to each other, and how in the world we can stop.

 

I'd like to think all of my friends are my friends for life. I also know this can never happen. The most important thing of all is that we're here now. Me and you (and everyone we know).

 

creactivity.

I don't have many answers. The answers I do have are shaky, at best. I make room for this. I breathe. 

I'm not sure what to say about creativity that hasn't been said before. You either have it, or you don't. Or maybe you're one of those people that has a button collection. In the end, all of the buttons make up a collage of colors and texture, and while button collecting doesn't seem very creative, it sure is something to look at. So what makes people tick?

That's what I loved about writing for a newspaper. Finding out what makes people tick, and using what makes me tick to write about it. I miss it terribly, but at the same time, I've had this gnawing feeling that tells me I'm on to something else. Maybe something bigger. Like a novel, or a collection of stories, or an illustrated book of poetry. O.K., probably not the poetry thing. I'm just not all that good at it.

So maybe the thing about creativity, is that whatever it is, creative people just need to make things happen. Even if they don't make any money, or if it's harder than spending their time decompressing after they've done their 40 hours already. Even if it means sacrificing family time, or holidays, or having a bigger, cleaner home than your neighbor. Even if it means sacrificing what's left of all of your time.

As for me, I'd skip three meals a week to have a little bit more time to do all of this. If only the "this" would present itself in such a way that the little voice in my head that tells me I'm all washed up shrivels up and dies. I hate that voice.

I have so much more respect for people when they let creativity rule their universe, even when the odds and their day job and the laundry are all stacked up against them. Sometimes I dream about having enough money to forget all about that and reach the point at which I use all of my creativity all of the time. But then, I'm afraid if that happened, I'd forget what makes it so important in the first place.

verti-gone.

I'm not complaining about anything today. It's 8:00 in the morning, it's sunny and beautiful outside, and I have coffee. 

Working backwards, the last three weeks have been terrible. I had vertigo for three weeks, and if you've never had it, it feels awful. Not only is it very uncomfortable, but scary. Vertigo isn't really a condition, but a symptom, and if you Google vertigo and headache it becomes even more scary. Especially if you've been to the ear, nose and throat specialist and they come up with nothing. The next thing that comes up is cancer, which is pretty much the only thing that comes up when you consult with Dr. Google for any combination of symptoms. 

The effect of all this, is that I didn't feel like myself - it's like walking around in a haze, and I was exhausted by all of the work my body and mind had to do to keep me upright. I had trouble talking as well, and I couldn't read. Literally. If I tried to read my eyes would skip some words, and replace others. It's a real strain on your eyes when the world is spinning. 

And yesterday, after three weeks of walking around on what felt like some other planet, something gave. My ears burned, my sinuses felt like someone had a vice on my head, and even my jaw ached. All at once. I felt this for about 20 minutes, had a panic attack, and then...poof. The dizziness left.

After that, I still had dull aching pains where the dizziness once lived, but I survived. Today, I can read and write, and nothing feels terrible. I'm still a little achy, but I'm guessing whatever was in there expanded everything, and now it's shrinking back to normal size.


That said, the ear, nose, and throat specialist looked at my ears and throat, but had neglected to consider my nose. By process of elimination, that leaves only my nose and sinuses. And I can't believe that they could be the source of such a terrible feeling.

So I'm writing today, courtesy the explosion in my head. Not only has it cleared the vertigo, but I think it's cleared the path to a lot more of this, and a lot less of that other thing that was making me feel like a lost, lonely alien.

Makes me wonder how much of it was all in my head.

Thanks, Hank.

Oh, my. It's a long time between posts. Where have I been? I subscribed to Netflix, including the instant play feature. Over the last few months, I thought it had done nothing for productivity, or creativity, or any activity for that matter. Until now.

Last night, I watched Bukowski: Born Into This. I heard this, cried a little, and fell asleep. And I think it's time I put my big girl pants on and start writing again.

from memory.

He tried to choke me once. Twice actually, but the second time seemed, for about 30 seconds, that it was real. It wasn't in anger, but it might have been in hate. In fact, if he were choking me any other way, I would have been much, much more afraid. But it was in the most loving way possible, in that he didn't kill me, and the look on his face reflected far more pain than I felt, even in the moment.

And there were others. They didn't choke me literally, but metaphorically I can't say that they didn't.

I had forgotten this story, but sometimes, in the night, I remember things. Important things. Like how I used to become involved with men who both loved me and wanted to kill me. Why? Because I didn't think it was true. Even now, I don't know if it's true.

That said, no matter what I say or write, everyone will decide their own reality based on what they can stomach, and that's o.k. for them, the same as it is for me. Maybe that's why I felt so much for someone who wasn't afraid to show me what was on the inside, when really it was so disgusting and inconvenient. It felt at very least like I'd discovered an undeniable truth. It made me so sad, not for me, but for all of the awful burdens the people all around us have to bear quietly.

I'm not afraid of people finding out who I really am. I'm terrified, however, of people deciding in their comfortable reality that I'm something I'm not. I know this isn't a healthy fear, and I know that I need to change this. Fear comes out in anger, and anger makes for all kinds of ugly, inconvenient displays--like choking people in the night, at least for that guy I once loved. But this is not a resolution. After all, there is no resolve for the past. It remains, regardless of what I change, and regardless still of who I've become. No, this isn't a resolution. It's acceptance.

I've found the strength and the will to pry all of those dirty fingers from around my neck. I've found a way to believe that regardless of how much love I have to offer, there are times when I should be afraid and many times that I shouldn't. And that I may not always know the difference. But being afraid of what is, and being afraid of what people think of me are two different things. I should probably work on fixing the latter, no matter what day of the year it is.

This may or may not be a true story. I'll never know, so you'll never know, but it's not pretty.

"Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise."--Miranda July

can't be wronger.

I suppose I could be more wrong, but what's the use? The way the word rolls off my tongue just doesn't feel right, though.  I've done things that were wrong. I've checked off the wrong answer. But me, just wrong?  As in, the whole of me...my being, my lifeline, my heart? Never.

I say this a lot nowadays: "I don't know what's wrong." And I've been correct. But finally, the answer is finding me, or I'm finding out, and I don't like it one bit.

Fact. I have free will. You do, and she does, and he does, and they do. That doesn't mean everyone's free to do as they please, because let's face it, a lot of people aren't, and for a lot of reasons. A guy in prison can't get out, but he can choose to die trying. If you're dirt poor, you can't run over to the next car lot, buy a fast car, and drive off into the sunset; but you could walk. Free will is still inside of that guy, inside my creepy next door neighbor, and therefore, must be inside of me. What I'm trying to say is that I feel trapped, but there's something building. That's not wrong, and it's not bad, and not even close to evil. I never was. I never will be. 

I remember how horrifying it was to simply get on a bus. Out of context, this seems silly. But it was the kind of bus where the kids would place their backpacks on the seat next to them so I couldn't sit down (and believe me, I couldn't sit down fast enough to keep my heart from breaking). It was the kind of bus that would take me to fourth grade. The kind of fourth grade that said I couldn't look at this or that kid because they'd always ask, "What are you looking at four-eyes," and everyone would laugh. The kind of fourth grade in which the teacher would look over my head instead of at it when the spit balls were filling up the back of my stupid, bowl-cut hair. 

But this ain't no pity party, kids. This is real life, and it keeps coming, like it or not. Grown up or not. Everybody knows this, right?


The problem with all of this is that I stopped getting on the bus. I fought my mother, I fought myself, and by then, the bus had won. I wonder if anyone remembers those mornings. I forget them most of the time. But right now I need to entertain them; to remind me that it's just a frigging bus, and regardless of where or with whom I sit, there's nothing wrong about me. Pause. And I think more recently, both because of and in spite of all of this, I may have been catching all of the wrong buses, even in my adult life. I know this because they were all bringing me back to the same place. And if I weren't wrong enough, it didn't stop there. I've finally stopped catching them at all. The bus won again.

Whenever you find yourself in a box, it's wise to ask yourself who's constructed it, and then find out where the seams are. And finally, what's holding them together. Most times, it isn't much more than a thin layer of glue. I'm holding out for the rain.